


L'usignolo

by PhKn



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Angst, Arc-V Angst Week 2018, Canon Compliant, Child Abuse, Gen, Pre-Canon, domestic abuse, early years, heartland - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 10:31:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16016072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhKn/pseuds/PhKn
Summary: For Arc-V Angst Week prompt (9/16): HeartlandTormented by an abusive father, Shun makes a promise to Ruri.





	L'usignolo

**Author's Note:**

> This was written some time ago but never posted; just my luck it fits the prompt. Hopefully I can keep up with the week.
> 
> Kurosaki Shun is at 12, Kurosaki Ruri is age 10.

I was home late; not only for the twenty-minute detour I’d taken to the shop a few blocks off my way back to our house. I clutched the little ribbon-wrapped box as I walked briskly and the sun sank below the rooftops of our neighborhood, both excited and anxious. Today was a long day, and how it ended was all up to the next ten minutes, and how carefully I explained myself. It was springtime, and I was sweating a little in my winter uniform.

On the front stoop I carefully placed the box in my school bag so that it wouldn’t get crushed. Our front door was always locked twice: one knob with the keyhole facing the outside, as usual; the other, a deadbolt with the keyhole facing the inside, because my sister wasn’t allowed out.

It had been like this for about a year. Mom got sick, and died. Dad started drinking to cope with the grief. He lost his job, and somehow his liquor-soaked brain convinced him that Ruri would get the same illness as Mom if she went outdoors. So he removed her from school, telling everyone in his best attempt at feigned sobriety that she was simply too weak and sickly for any human contact other than her immediate family. It was absurd; of course she wasn’t going to get sick like Mom did. No one got cancer from just going outside.

Dad had the TV on some quiz show, but no other lights on. I left my shoes by the door, hoping to sneak upstairs before I had to talk to him, but—

“You’re late, boy.”

Dad’s glass was empty but his cigarette was lit.

“Yeah,” I replied slowly, “The practical entrance exams for Spade were after school today, so I tried out.”

Apparently he was still dextrous enough to turn the TV off with the remote. With that light gone from the room I turned on a lamp on the table by the couch. Dad’s bloodshot eyes were narrowed at me as he lounged in his armchair. “You did what?”

“I tried out for Spade,” I said. I tightened my fist around the strap of my school bag still slung over my shoulder. I could run for it and be out of the house before he could even stumble out of his chair, but the contents of that little ribboned box would get ruined. “You know, the dueling school. They won the Heartland Championship last—“

“I know,” he said sharply. I waited quietly while he took a draw from his cigarette, until I could see his face again, still watching me. “So?”

The back of my neck prickled, but I kept myself calm. “So,” I replied, “I got in.”

Dad took another pull from his cigarette, and stared at me, waiting for me to explain myself further.

“They said I had the highest entrance exam score in the history of the Spade branch. I was at the top of the list. They only let in eight kids and over a hundred applied. I’m—I was the best. So—so I’m going to go there instead of the public middle school.”

He blew out his smoke, and through the cloud he gestured to the glass bottle on the coffee table. “Bring me that.”

The bottle had gilded Russian letters on the label. I moved forward and picked it up, and held it out to him at arms length. He jerked his head at his empty glass, indicating that I was supposed to fill it for him.

My hands shook a little as I unscrewed the cap. This was his favorite way of reminding me who was in charge. I could refuse; I’d tried before, but it never worked out any better for me than staying quiet and obedient had. I tipped the bottle to fill the glass, and as the clear liquid began pouring out of the bottle, Dad pressed the lit end of his cigarette against my wrist.

The first time he’d done it, I’d screamed and spilled the entire bottle all over the carpet, resulting in far more pain than just the one cigarette burn would have got me. By now, I could simply grit my teeth and fill the glass without a drop spilt.

“So you wanna be some kind of hot-shot duelist now,” he said in a gravelly tone as the smoke rose in a coil from the cigarette, “And I’m supposed to pay for you to go to some fancy-ass private card game school, is that right?”

“No, Dad,” the back of my neck prickled again as the heat rose in my face. “It’s sponsored. They do tournaments and promotions so it costs the same as public school, it’s super exclusive and you have to be really good to get in. I’m really good. I’m gonna go to Spade.” 

I set the bottle down on the side table next to him, and he lifted his extinguished cigarette off of my wrist. Out of my school bag I pulled a stapled packet of documents. “You need to sign the enrollment forms.”

He didn’t need to. On my way home I’d dropped by the library to copy the papers the school had given me upon my admittance. Forging his signature was easy, and I was well-practiced at it after all the unemployment checks and tax forms I’d dealt with for him. I dropped the papers on the side table, next to the half-empty liquor bottle.

“I’m gonna go tell Ruri,” I said, backing out of the living room toward the stairs.

I thought he ignored me, until I was halfway up the stairs and he mumbled, “Do what you want.”

That was the best answer I could have expected. I didn’t need his permission to go to Spade but everything would go much smoother if he wasn’t going to fight about it. Ruri didn’t need to be subjected to more yelling in the house than she already was. The first stage of my plan was a success. After all, the neighbors would be of no help—even if the police came and took Ruri and me away from Dad there was no guarantee she and I would stay together. I could do it on my own. It would take a couple more years. In a little more than two years I’d be fifteen. 

Ruri’s room was at the end of the upstairs hallway; thankfully meaning most of Dad’s cigarette smoke didn’t reach her door. I pulled my sleeve down to cover the new blister on my wrist.

There was light shining under Ruri’s door, and a sweet movement of classical music was playing faintly behind: her favorite, Respighi’s _L’usignolo._ Gently I lifted the little ribboned box out of my school bag and knocked softly. “Ruri? It’s me.”

Immediately I heard her scamper across the room, and no sooner had she flung open the door than her face was buried in my chest with her arms wrapped around me. I got a hug every day, but today’s was even tighter than usual.

“How did it go?” she asked into my chest, her voice muffled in my shirt.

I had wanted to present the news with some suspense, I had planned the whole story, building up to my top score and immediate acceptance into one of the two most exclusive dueling schools in the city, but all at once I blurted out, “I got in!” 

She gasped and jumped on the spot with her arms still around me. “I knew it! I knew it!” 

“Close the door, close the door, the smoke,” I said, laughing and scooting into her room so she could shut the door behind us to keep Dad’s cigarette smoke out of Ruri’s bright, clean bedroom.

She was in a frilly lavender pinafore dress, a hand-me-down from one of the merciful neighbors I ran errands for in exchange for a little pocket money, and barefooted. Her room was always tidy but for the usual clutter of books and drawings with which she occupied herself when she was done with all her housework for the day. 

“Tell me everything!” she trilled, dancing in place. She listened intently with her fingers in her mouth and her eyes shining as I launched into a blow-by-blow account of every detail of the practical exam: how big the dueling auditorium was, how many people were watching, what my opponent was wearing, what cards we’d both used—

“And you won!” she exclaimed excitedly, before I’d even finished the story, clapping her hands together.

“No,” I said ruefully. It would have been a better story if I could announce a firm victory—but no, my opponent was an advanced student at Spade, and none of the prospective applicants were expected to actually win a duel against an older and much more experienced student. “But they judge you according to how many points you can take away, and how efficiently you use your turns, and how well you built your deck. And you know what—I set a record. I was the best applicant they’d ever seen. I got him down to 150 life points and I got the highest final exam score in the history of the school. Once I get some proper training I’m going to be really, really good. And, oh—“ I had almost forgotten the little box in my hands, so I held it out to her. “I got you this. It’s cake.”

Her eyes widened even bigger with delight as she took the box and sat down on the floor to open it. I’d requested that the shop tie the box with a yellow ribbon. Her favorite color, like the sunlight. She smoothed the ribbon on her lap before folding it neatly and setting it beside her.

I set the plastic fork from the cake shop down next to her as she carefully opened the box. It wasn’t an expensive cake; there were some really fancy ones at the shop but this one was the nicest I could afford, a little white cake topped with a glossy strawberry. With relish she slid the fork through the icing and scooped a bite of cake, and held it out to me.

“I bought it for you!” I protested.

She shook her head. “We’re _celebrating_.”

I took the bite she offered, and started talking again. “I got to tour the school, too. They have a _huge_ library, I can bring you any book you want. There are photographs of all the students on the walls, and a case full of trophies and plaques, and some pretty funny graffiti in the restrooms…”

She listened, but as she ate her cake I watched her face grow a little somber as I described the school. Eventually I trailed off, and she said quietly, “Does this…does this mean you won’t be home as much?”

I paused. This was the part I hadn’t wanted to mention. “Classes go a little later, because the dueling is still extracurricular. A couple more hours a day. I’ll still be home for dinner.”

She nodded, and took another bite of cake. Even those two extra hours alone with Dad every day were going to feel so much longer. He wasn’t good company. I remembered how some time after he’d decided that she had to stop going to school and had to stay inside, I’d saved up all my pocket money from running the neighbors’ errands and, in a fit of pity and protest, I’d bought her a pet bird, a dove, to keep her company. I’d brought it home and she’d loved it, but dad got mad. Really mad. Birds were filthy and carried all sorts of diseases, did I want her to get sick and die like Mom? And after the thrashing I lay half-conscious on the couch and she had sobbed and apologized over and over and sworn, with a bag of frozen vegetables pressed against my throbbing face, that I was the only company she ever wanted, while Dad drowned the poor bird in the kitchen sink.

He could have just let it fly away.

Pushing this memory aside, I said, trying to cheer her up, “But you know, they program the dueling tournaments between the schools. I’m going to be on TV!”

She did perk up at that, her eyes sparkling with the plastic fork in her mouth. “Oh, that’s right! We watched it last year!”

“I’ll be sure to put on a good show for you,” I said, smiling. It was a lie; I was angry. I wanted her to be there, in the audience, with all the normal children that went to school and walked outside and weren’t held captive by their own drunk, deluded fathers under some thin guise of concern for their health.

“But the monsters look so _real_ on TV,” she said wistfully, “Is that how they look in real life? Are they really just holograms?”

“They’re just holograms,” I confirmed, “But they do look real. See—“ I dug in my school bag and brought out my duel disk, a scuffed refurbished model with a cracked screen but which nonetheless worked perfectly well. “The disk reads the data off the cards, and projects them onto the field.”

She held out her gentle hands to hold the duel disk, running her finger along the buttons and dials on the surface, and then to the stack of cards at one end. “Can I…?”

“Sure,” I said, and I watched her draw a card out of my disk.

“It’s a bird!” she exclaimed happily. I grinned, and she laid the card on the floor face-up between us. She pulled another card, and another and another, until all forty of my cards were laid face-up on the floor. “They’re all birds,” she sighed in adoration. “They look strong. They look like you.”

I smiled again, this time sadly. These creatures were straightforward and defiant, powerful and brutal and unchecked. I wished I was like them. When they soared over the field I felt as though I was flying with them, burning every obstacle that lay below me.

“That’s not all of them,” I said. I reached across to the duel disk in her hands and pressed a button on the side. She gasped as a little compartment snapped open, and I pulled out another card, just one, and showed it to her.

She took it tenderly, as though it was alive. “This one is black?” She pointed at all the cards on the floor, where all the birds were on brown-faced cards.

“It’s special,” I told her, “It’s extra-strong. When it appears on the field it has stars spinning around it. When you watch me on TV, look for this monster, okay? I’ll summon it for you.”

She laid the special black card down next to the rest of my cards on the floor, and gazed down at them all, passing her fingers over certain ones she liked, pointing out which ones were the same. And finally, in a quiet voice over my deck, she asked, “Um—are there…are there girls who go to Spade, too?”

“Of course,” I answered, a little surprised at the question. “You’ve seen girls on the TV tournaments, right? A lot of the students are girls.”

She nodded with her eyes still on the cards. She picked one up to read the description, laid it back down, and picked up the black card, turning it over in her hands, tracing the shape of the monster illustrated there with her soft finger.

“Will you…” she whispered, laying my card down so she could cradle my duel disk to her chest like a treasure, “Will you teach me to play?” She looked up finally, meeting my eyes with a teary, pleading look. “Will you, Shun?”

“Of course,” I said promptly. Dad couldn’t get mad about that, right? “Students at Spade get discounts on cards and access to limited releases, so I can get you a really good deck. We’ll build it together, okay? We’ll play every day, if you want. I’ll teach you everything I learn at school and maybe when you’re old enough you can—“ I stopped. I couldn’t make any promises I wasn’t sure I’d keep. “—You could even beat me. I bet you’ll be really good.”

She smiled, and gave my duel disk another squeeze before placing it on the floor, and carefully stacked my deck back into order. She held it out to me. I covered it with my hand.

“Ruri,” I said slowly, “I’m going to be the best duelist at Spade—and I’ll win every tournament there is. In a couple years I’ll be fifteen and I’ll get a part-time job, and I’ll be allowed to enter the pro league tournaments. Once I get enough money I’ll get an apartment and you and I can live there, okay? And Dad won’t ever find us.”

Real tears started in her warm eyes. She laid her other hand on top of mine, and I pressed my other hand on top of hers, and we held my deck, my raptors which burned with freedom and power, between us on the floor of her bedroom. “And…I can go outside again?”

“You can go wherever you want,” I insisted, “Birds can fly, after all.”

She smiled, and bit her lip as tears poured down her face. “Promise?”

We held my deck, my blazing heart, in our hands as though consecrating it.

“I promise.”  


End file.
